How to get music in?

[joseph]

@jdaviescoates said:

PS I thought we normally had env instead of env.sh in Cloudron apps these days?

env.sh -> export required
env -> no export required

[jdaviescoates]

@james said:

Hello @jdaviescoates

Please try to use:

export MEDIA_ROOT="/media/Music"

in the /app/data/env.sh file.

That didn't seem to make any difference. Any my server is running out of space so for now I've just deleted the app to free app a little.

[rmdes]

@jdaviescoates you should mount the volume at /app/data/music in Cloudron's Storage settings instead of /media/Music.

The package already expects music files at /app/data/music/, nginx already serves from there, and the env vars already point there. No env.sh changes needed, just change the mount point in Cloudron's UI.

I have not tested with a volume mount (I'm still loading all my collection within /app/data/music natively in the container, but I will transition to volume mount soon

[rmdes]

Another way to import music fast :

In-place import means Funkwhale indexes your music files without copying them — it reads the metadata (tags) and creates database entries, then streams directly from the original location.

In the Cloudron context, it would work like this:

1. Mount the volume at /app/data/music in Cloudron's Storage settings
2. Files are immediately visible to Funkwhale - MUSIC_DIRECTORY_PATH already points there
3. Import via CLI from the web terminal:

/app/code/manage.sh import_files <library_id> "/app/data/music/" --in-place --recursive

3. (Get your library ID from the Funkwhale web UI, create a library first if you haven't)
4. Streaming works because nginx already serves /_protected/music/ from /app/data/music/ via X-Accel-Redirect, the files are served directly, no duplication

The package even has scheduler tasks for maintaining in-place imports:

• check_inplace_files_check - dry-run to see if any referenced files are missing
• check_inplace_files_apply - actually update the database for missing files

So the key point for the user: mount at /app/data/music, then in-place import just works out of the box. Their files stay on the mounted volume, Funkwhale only stores metadata in PostgreSQL, and nginx serves the audio directly from disk.

[jdaviescoates]

@rmdes said:

So the key point for the user: mount at /app/data/music

But unless I've misunderstood Cloudron Volumes cannot be mounted there, they are always at /media/volume-name , no?

Perhaps it's possible to symlink or something?

But, I think if I set MUSIC_DIRECTORY_PATH to (in my case) /media/Music I'd guess it would've worked... will have another play...

[joseph]

Looking at the repo, there are three paths:

export MEDIA_ROOT="/app/data/media"
export MUSIC_DIRECTORY_PATH="/app/data/music"
export MUSIC_DIRECTORY_SERVE_PATH="/app/data/music"

What's the difference between music and media cc @james

[james]

According to the documentation of Funkwhale:

MEDIA_ROOT

The path where you store media files (such as album covers or audio tracks) on your system. Make sure this directory actually exists.

MUSIC_DIRECTORY_PATH

The path on your server where Funkwhale places files from in-place imports. This path needs to be readable by the webserver and api and worker processes.

MUSIC_DIRECTORY_SERVE_PATH

On Docker setups the value of MUSIC_DIRECTORY_PATH may be different from the actual path on your server. You can specify this path in your docker-compose.yml file

When setting this in the /app/data/env.sh and creating the folders and setting the correct permissions manually.
A media file was uploaded to the volume.

export MEDIA_ROOT="/media/External SSD/funkwhale/media"
export STATIC_ROOT="/media/External SSD/funkwhale/static"
export MUSIC_DIRECTORY_PATH="/media/External SSD/funkwhale/music"
export MUSIC_DIRECTORY_SERVE_PATH="/media/External SSD/funkwhale/music"

[joseph]

thanks @james. ok, so MEDIA_ROOT is like metadata and MUSIC_DIRECTORY_PATH is the real music. .

[james]

@joseph
As I understood it, not even that.
MEDIA_ROOT is where all media uploaded gets stored.
MUSIC_DIRECTORY_PATH is like an import folder where you can manually upload files that then get imported.
But I am not 100 % certain, it is still confusing for me.

[jdaviescoates]

I finally got this working with Claude's help, so I asked it to write this quick guide for anyone else wanting to use music from a Cloudron Volume with Funkwhale (2.x) via in-place import (no copying).

1. Mount the volume
In the app's Storage settings, add the volume as a mount (read-only is fine). It appears at /media/<VolumeName>.

2. Don't change the env vars
Leave MUSIC_DIRECTORY_PATH and MEDIA_ROOT unset in /app/data/env.sh. The package's nginx config (/run/nginx.conf) serves in-place files from /app/data/music/ regardless, so pointing MUSIC_DIRECTORY_PATH at /media/... lets the import run but breaks playback. Remove any lines you've added and restart the app.

3. Symlink the volume into /app/data/music
In the Web Terminal, replacing <VolumeName> with your volume's name:

ln -s /media/<VolumeName> /app/data/music/<VolumeName>
chown -h cloudron:cloudron /app/data/music/<VolumeName>

If your music sits in a subfolder of the volume, link that subfolder instead. nginx follows the symlink fine.

4. Get a library ID
Funkwhale 2.x creates built-in libraries per user (me / followers / instance / everyone) and the old /content/libraries/ page has gone, so list them from the terminal:

source /run/funkwhale/env.sh
source /app/code/venv/bin/activate
gosu cloudron:cloudron funkwhale-manage shell -c "from funkwhale_api.music.models import Library; [print(l.uuid, l.name, l.privacy_level, l.actor) for l in Library.objects.all()]"

5. Import in place
Test with one folder first:

gosu cloudron:cloudron funkwhale-manage import_files <library-uuid> "/app/data/music/<VolumeName>/<Some Artist>/" --recursive --noinput --in-place

Then for the full library, run it detached so closing the terminal doesn't kill it (queuing ~100k files over an SSHFS mount took me a few hours):

setsid nohup gosu cloudron:cloudron funkwhale-manage import_files <library-uuid> "/app/data/music/<VolumeName>/" --recursive --noinput --in-place --async > /tmp/fw-import.log 2>&1 &

Check progress with tail /tmp/fw-import.log.

Keeping it in sync
I sync new music onto the volume with the Syncthing app on the same server, so next I'm going to try import_files ... --watch --prune as an @service line in the app's Cron section. Will report back on whether that works over an SSHFS-mounted Storage Box.